On Reddit, Valve held an AMA for Half-Life: Alyx, the upcoming VR pre-sequel for the Half-Life series. During the AMA, Valve revealed that Alyx is technically already finished with the team adding some last bits of polish ahead of the game's March 2020 release.
"With the exception of some tweaks to the absolute final scene, the game is done," Valve wrote. "Lots of us at Valve, as well as playtesters, have played through the entire game multiple times. Right now we're primarily polishing and fixing bugs, which is where we'd hope to be at this point in the development cycle. We're confident we'll hit our intended release."
Valve added that currently there are around 80 people working on Alyx, making it the largest team that the company has ever had working on a single game.
Valve also addressed several questions about the gameplay in Alyx. "Some creatures respond to audio more than others," the company wrote. "We don't want to spoil anything, but there's an example of this we're particularly excited about." Valve added that a limb dismemberment feature would heavily factor into one specific combat scenario as well.
Co-writer Erik Wolpaw also talked about whether Alyx (the character) would speak in Alyx (the game) or continue the Half-Life series trend of being a silent hero. "I personally prefer writing games where the viewpoint character speaks," Wolpaw wrote. "We made the silence of the protagonist into a joke in the Portals, but you only get to pull that gag once. I had a lot [of] fun writing for the [Left 4 Dead games] where the characters were all little chatterboxes, so if I had my way we wouldn't do any more silent protagonists. That said...I don't get my way as often as I deserve so who knows what's going to happen."
Ahead of Half-Life: Alyx's release, every previous Half-Life game is free on Steam. Additionally, you will get Half-Life: Alyx for free if you own a Valve Index VR headset prior to March 30--whether you already have it or choose to buy one before the end of March.
Half-Life: Alyx News